Four rapes reported over the weekend

Tuesday

Nov 30, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Four rapes were reported in West Alabama over the weekend, including one in which a woman told authorities her attacker pretended to be a law enforcement officer.

Four rapes were reported in West Alabama over the weekend, including one in which a woman told authorities her attacker pretended to be a law enforcement officer.The woman told authorities she was driving on Alabama Highway 14 between Pickensville and the Mississippi state line about 10 p.m. Friday and pulled over for a driver with blue flashing lights on top of his vehicle, said Pickens County Sheriff David Abston. “We don't know for sure what he was driving, but it might be an SUV,” Abston said.The woman, who is in her 30s, was treated and released from Pickens County Medical Center.The suspect has a slim to medium build and brown-blonde hair that grazes his collar.“Our suggestion to the public if they're being pulled over by a blue light and suspect that it might not be the police is to drive the speed limit to an area in town that is well-lit and has people there, and try to call for help if you've got a cell phone,” Abston said.Anyone with information about the attack is asked to call the Pickens County Sheriff's Office at 205-367-2000.In Tuscaloosa County, the Metro Homicide Unit is investigating three other rapes that were reported over the weekend.One woman reported that she was raped at gunpoint behind an abandoned house in Holt, another woman said she was raped at an apartment in Tuscaloosa and a third woman said she was raped at a fraternity house on the University of Alabama campus.In the first case, a 35-year-old woman said that she was walking home from a friend's house in Holt about midnight Friday when a man walked up behind her and pointed a gun, said unit commander Capt. Loyd Baker.He took the woman behind an abandoned house and raped her, he said. A suspect has not been identified in that case.At the same time Friday, a 25-year-old woman said that she went with a 25-year-old suspect to an apartment in Bonita Terrace off Hargrove Road. The man forced her into a bedroom and raped her, Baker said. She got away and ran to a nearby residence where someone called police.A 19-year-old woman told police that a man she had just met forced her into a room at a fraternity house at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, where he raped her, Baker said.The suspects in the Bonita Terrace and fraternity house cases have been identified but had not been charged as of Monday.